After Roderick’s defeat the Moors spread themselves over all the province, committing inhuman barbarities. * * * The chief resistance was at Merida. The defendants, many of whom were Portuguese, that being the Supreme Tribunal of Lusitania, were commanded by Sacaru, a noble Goth. Many brave actions passed at the siege, but at length there being no hopes of relief and provisions failing, the town was surrendered upon articles. The commander of the Lusitanians, traversing Portugal, came to a seaport town, where, collecting a good number of ships, he put to sea, but to which part of the world they were carried does not appear. There is an ancient fable of an island called Antilla in the western ocean, inhabited by Portuguese, but it could never yet be found, and therefore we will leave it until such time as it is discovered, but to this place our author supposes these Portugals to have been driven.[129] It is plain that Captain Stevens paraphrases with comments rather than translates. The original[130] avers that the fugitives made sail for the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), in order that they might preserve some remnants of the Spanish race, but were carried elsewhere. It also specifies that the legendary island which they are supposed to have reached is inhabited by Portuguese and contains seven cities--_tiene siete cividades_. This last account lacks positive mention of the emigrating bishops and for the first time names a definite though rather remote goal as aimed at by their effort. But the movement from Merida is well accounted for, and a trusted military commander would seem a natural leader for such an enterprise of wholesale escape. The bishops, implied by the seven cities, might well gather to him at Oporto or be picked up on the way. On the whole it seems the most easily believable version of the story; though of course it does not necessarily follow that they really chose any land so remote as Teneriffe and its neighbors--if they knew of them--for a new abiding place. Of course the continuance of Portuguese language and civilization and the persistence of seven isolated towns through so many centuries must be ranked with the auriferous sands of Antillia as late products of the dreaming Iberian brain. MYTHICAL LOCATION OF THE SEVEN CITIES ON THE MAINLAND